Christie meets Cluedo at Christmas!
Follow the clues. Find the fortune. Solve the Mystery. This Christmas is to die for. Let the game begin . . .
'Endgame has kept our secrets for half a century, now it's time for it, and its secrets, to have a new owner.'
When Lily returns home to her aunt's manor house, she discovers that in order to inherit, she and her estranged cousins must stay together over the Christmas week and take part in a family tradition: the annual treasure hunt.
But as they are drawn deeper into the game, the clues seem to point not to the deeds to the manor house, but to the key to a twenty-year-old mystery: what really happened to Lily's mother?
As a snowstorm cuts them off from the village, it becomes apparent that the game has turned deadly and that Lily is fighting for more than just an inheritance: she is now fighting for her life. Does she have what it takes to survive?
12 clues, 12 keys and 12 days of Christmas for the heirs of Endgame House to find their inheritance, but how many will die before Twelfth Night?
An entertaining mystery full of cryptic clues
The Christmas Murder Game is an entertaining seasonally-themed read, combining the long tradition of the snowed-in country house murder mystery, echoes of the board game "Cluedo" ("Clue" in the US) and the crime fiction trope of the deadly treasure hunt.
After the death of the family matriarch, eight cousins and in-laws converge on the Armitage family's Yorkshire mansion, Endgame House, for one last round of the traditional "Christmas Game". The stakes are high, as Aunt Liliana's will dictates that the game's winner will become the heir to Endgame House itself.
As the weather outside worsens, the various resentments, alliances and shared histories of the protagonists immediately become clear as the cousins reconnect and settle into Endgame. For our heroine, Lily Armitage the Christmas Game provides not only the opportunity to inherit Endgame, but also to solve her mother’s mysterious death 21 years previously.
It doesn't take long before events prove that someone is taking the game very, very seriously, and is prepared to kill in order to get their hands on Endgame House...
Alexandra Benedict’s narrative is structured around the traditional twelve days of Christmas, with a clue in the form of a sonnet-riddle being provided at some point on each day. Puzzle lovers like myself will delight in the liberal use of anagrams, literary and musical allusions and word association with which the participants, and by extension the reader, must contend.
Lily was well developed as a complex and sympathetic character, but the supporting cast less so. The setting, a remote Yorkshire pile isolated by snow drifts and featuring such classic settings as an icehouse, a hedge maze and a woodland chapel in its grounds is extremely well described and evocative.
In summary, The Christmas Murder Game is an enjoyably macabre Christmas romp of a read, employing many familiar and beloved tropes of the genre. I'd recommend it as a seasonal read to any reader who enjoys modern interpretations of traditional formats and cryptic puzzles sprinkled throughout their mystery reads.
Sarah, 11/10/2022
